Manufacture of plated flat-ware.



A. WILZIN.

MANUFACTURE OF PLATED FLAT WARE.

APPLICATION FILED 001.20, 1913.

1 1 30 I Patented May 11, 1915.

2 SHEETS-SHEET l.

l ,1, 1 aYs r.

A. WILZIN.

MANUFACTURE OF PLATED FLAT WARE.

APPLICATION FILED OCT. 20, 1913.

1 13 3 I Patented May 11, 1915.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

WITNESSES: I/VVE/VTOR ART/m L Z/IV 4 By ATTORNEY THE NORRIS PETERS C0,. PHOTO-LITHCL. WASHINGTON, D. C

ARTHUR WILZIN,

OF ST.-0UEN, FRANCE.

MANUFACTURE OF PLATED FLAT-WARE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May 11, 1915..

Application filed October 20, 1913. Serial No. 796,097.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, ARTHUR VVILZIN, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of St-Ouen, in the Department of the Seine, France, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Manufacture of Plated Flat-WVare, of which the following is a specification.

My present invention relates to the manufacture of plated flatware, for instance tinplated forks and spoons.

The object of my invention is to produce such articles more cheaply and reliably than hitherto, with a highly polished and uniform surface.

The usual process of manufacturing fiatware involves doing the surface work, such as plating, polishing, buffing, grinding, etc, after the article has been shaped and design stamped. Very skilled labor and very slow work is required to obtain the desired results, because the shapes are complicated and the risk of spoiling the design is ever present.

The object of my present improvement is particularly to obviate these difficulties and to render it easy, even for unskilled labor, to quickly obtain good polishing of the surfaces and eliminate the risk of spoiling the sharpness of the design. I accomplish this by doing the surface work on the flat blanks on both sides, and then do the shaping and final stamping between burnished dies. The flat blanks may be produced in the usual manner, but I prefer to use blanks manufactured according to the method set forth in my application for Letters Patent of the United States, No. 673,589, filed J anuary 26, 1912 (British Patent No. 12077 of May 21st, 1912), because the distribution of metal obtained thereby is more uniform and permits the burnished dies to act upon the surfaces more surely and uniformly.

In some cases, the blank is first graded, then given its outline, and while still in the fiat, it is either first polished, on both sides, and then plated with tin or other metal, or, the polishing operation preceding the plating operation may be omitted. In either event, the article is polished on both sides after plating, while it is still flat, and then follows the shaping and embossing process which gives the article the desired shape and design. This last mentioned process, is preferably performed by means of burnished dies between which the plated and polished article is pressed so as to maintain or increase the brightness of its surface and condense its tin-coating.

Preferably I obtain the blank by cutting ofi from bar or hoop stock, strips of a weight equal to a multiple of the weight of the graded blank before edge-trimming. Then, by exerting combined edge and side pressure, I transform these strips into a plu rality of axially connected blanks of substantially equal thickness throughout, each of such intermediate blanks possessing a distribution of metal substantially equal to that of the graded blank. These connected intermediate blanks are then separated from each other. Thereupon, the end portions (adapted to form the bowl or tines respectively) are spread and graded, the stems are upset by edgewise pressure so as to thicken them, but the blanks still remain fiat. These flat blanks are then either plated immediately, or first polished and then plated, and the remainder of the process is as described above.

In detail I may proceed as follows: From hoop or bar stock I cut off a strip as per Figure 1 representing the weight and volume of about two and one tenth to two and one fifth times that of the finished fork or spoon. I then assemble the strips of this kind in packages as shown in Fig. 2. I submit same to lateral pressure between straight confining blocks which prevent expansion during the working in the direction of the thickness of the strips and while thus held under pressure I exert edge pressure by means of profiling tools or rolls upon the package thus transforming it in one or several operations into the package of profiled strips shown by Fig. 3. These packages are separated, thereby yielding blanks as shown by Fig. 4, which preferably contain at every point of their length, crosssections corresponding to the amount of metal contained in the finished graded blank at corresponding points. The bowl portion is now widened out, by simultaneously grading it, in a transverse direction as shown by Fig. 5, which can be done in one or several operations either in a press or rolls. The outline should now be trimmed or shaved so as to bring it to the exact contour required. The blank thus obtained is polished by hand or in an automatic machine so as to present a suitable surface, then it is tinplated on both sides. After that the tinplated surfaces are polished, and finally it is shaped and embossed, preferably in burnished dies so as to maintain and improve the luster given by the previous fiat polishlhe first four steps in manufacturing forks arepractically identical, as illustrated by Figs. 6, 7, 8 and 9. The fifth step is shown by Fig. 10, which consists in squeezing the fork end in a preliminary manner as indicated by outline and shaded section. After this. the edge is trimmed all around in a special shaving die which simultaneously corrects the axial line of the blank, thus producing the blank shown in Fig. 11. Then follows the flat polishing, the tineplating and embossing and shaping in burnished dies, which results in the final shape shown by Fig. 12. 7

The sequence and detail of these operations may be varied to a great extent without departing from the spirit of my invention, which is represented by the following claim.

I claim as my invention:

In the manufacture of plated flatware, the process which consists in polishing the blank while it is in a flat condition, then plating the polished blank, then polishing the flat plated surface, and thereupon stamping or embossing the article.

In testimony whereof, I have signed this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

ARTHUR WVILZIN.

Witnesses:

J OHNYLOTKA, CHARLES MARTHE.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents,

Washington, D. C. 

